Merging iTunes Accounts - there may be hope!

If there's a technical reason for it, a real technical reason, I would be interested to know it.

There's obviously no technical reason. It just entails changing a value in a database. They're just too lazy to fix a system that was poorly conceived.

It's disingenuous to state that it's a "value in a DB". Large systems frequently have limitations that seem arbitrary or trivial to overcome but in reality result from fundamental data model obstacles. It seems obvious that merging accounts should be simple, but they may have relationships and other metadata that they use for tracking, billing, and reporting purposes that make it effectively "impossible".

No. It is a matter of updating a value in a database. Sometimes, if you designed things very poorly, it also involves updating the schema. But it is always technically possible. Any refusal to fix things is due to business reasons. And when your customers suffer for it, you deserve to get panned.

When I buy something from the App Store on my iPhone, it uses the account that's logged in - if I want to change it I have to go to Settings, log out, then log in again, then attempt to purchase again... When I update multiple apps, it again appears to use the logged-in account details, but this can cause problems with apps bought on the other account.

Yep. This is also a problem when you have iTunes accounts for more than one country. Being able to associate or merge accounts would mean I could download content I'm authorized to buy even when the account I'm currently logged in under isn't authorized for the geography I happen to be in at the moment. As is, it's the same pointless log-out, log-in dance.

If there's a technical reason for it, a real technical reason, I would be interested to know it.

There's obviously no technical reason. It just entails changing a value in a database. They're just too lazy to fix a system that was poorly conceived.

It's disingenuous to state that it's a "value in a DB". Large systems frequently have limitations that seem arbitrary or trivial to overcome but in reality result from fundamental data model obstacles. It seems obvious that merging accounts should be simple, but they may have relationships and other metadata that they use for tracking, billing, and reporting purposes that make it effectively "impossible".

No. It is a matter of updating a value in a database. Sometimes, if you designed things very poorly, it also involves updating the schema. But it is always technically possible. Any refusal to fix things is due to business reasons. And when your customers suffer for it, you deserve to get panned.

If you want to get pedantic about your terminology then yes, nearly every restriction in the world of technology boils down to a business rather than technical reason. Namely, will this cost us more to fix/implement than it's worth. I personally want the ability to merge accounts as well, but having been on the other end of issues like this in the past I think you're being entirely too glib when you label people and organizations as "lazy" for not supporting feature X. And, as you clearly know, there's a non-trivial cost to schema changes that can include downtime-causing migrations among other headaches.

If you want to get pedantic about your terminology then yes, nearly every restriction in the world of technology boils down to a business rather than technical reason. Namely, will this cost us more to fix/implement than it's worth. I personally want the ability to merge accounts as well, but having been on the other end of issues like this in the past I think you're being entirely too glib when you label people and organizations as "lazy" for not supporting feature X. And, as you clearly know, there's a non-trivial cost to schema changes that can include downtime-causing migrations among other headaches.

I do agree that fixing it so accounts can merge may be non-trivial in terms of time/costs/organisational focus. However, the move towards iCloud is likely to make the existing complications for many users far, far worse, and therefore some sort of acknowledgement of this from Apple would actually be helpful (and at no cost).

If Apple says "It will never be possible to merge accounts. Sorry. You either put up with it or rebuy your apps and stuff (your music you can "rip" to your other account and use Match to incorporate, I guess)." then at least we would know where we stood.

If they said "We understand your problems - we are working on it, but it's not as easy as it looks (due to legal/coding/whatever issues)." then we could also make some sort of decision.

So I guess nobody's ever had to deal with a single account when the couple divorces?

Really, I could see a charge cost to combine one or more accounts, and another (possibly higher) cost to duplicate all the purchases in two accounts (yet another expense in the divorce proceedings), similar to the processes they had in place to remove drm from already purchased songs.

Multiuser/married households are a huge demographic that Apple hasn't quite figured out yet. Home Sharing was a step in the right direction but not enough.

A better solution than merging accounts, IMO, would be to have primary and secondary accounts in iTunes -- treat both Apple IDs as logged in (so you can get app updates, iCloud access, etc.) but purchases are made using the primary account.

In a divorce situation, you just deauthorize any computer that's using your Apple ID as a secondary account.

The problem with that being: I'm the home IT guy. All of our software is purchased under my account. There would be a power imbalance (yeah, kinda trivial in the big scheme of things, divorce wise, but if this is the model going forward, it could add up.)

The more I think about it, the more I think this is going to be a *huge* problem affecting potentially hundreds of thousands of users.

Many, if not most, MobileMe accounts came about after the holder bought an iPhone and wanted to sync it.

Many, if not most, of those iPhone purchasers would have been existing users of iTunes, who would have had a pre-existing iTunes account with a non-Apple address.

I'm sort of an example -- I got .Mac before there was an iPhone, but after I already had an iTunes account.

I think Apple will have to figure out a way to allow a one-time merge, or there will be a shitstorm.

I agree. Apple has been slapping features onto Apple IDs now for years (iTunes Music, Movies, Apps, Books, iMessage, developer accounts, iCloud, Apple Store purchases, et cetera) and it's finally coming to a point, both from volume of attached services and age of the IDs, where the need to merge (and perhaps split in certain narrow instances) is becoming very important. I do hope they're working on it, but I'll be surprised if it's available any time soon.

IMO, that's a bit like like saying car manufacturers should offer a lower-cost car to the divorcing spouse who doesn't get to keep the family car. Obviously it's not exactly the same, because of the difference between tangible and intangible goods -- but I don't think Apple should have to ease the financial burdens of people's divorces. Addressing multiuser households for as long as they remain intact, however, is a usability issue that definitely should be on their radar.

If you want to get pedantic about your terminology then yes, nearly every restriction in the world of technology boils down to a business rather than technical reason. Namely, will this cost us more to fix/implement than it's worth. I personally want the ability to merge accounts as well, but having been on the other end of issues like this in the past I think you're being entirely too glib when you label people and organizations as "lazy" for not supporting feature X. And, as you clearly know, there's a non-trivial cost to schema changes that can include downtime-causing migrations among other headaches.

It's not pedantic to talk about the differences between technical and business constraints when we're discussing what's possible, nor is it unreasonable for customers to complain about business practices that frustrate them.

in iOS 4.3.3, you can now choose Automatic Downloads, for Apps, Books and Music (not in the UK). However, not only is this tied to just one Apple ID - if you try to enable it for another Apple ID, a pop-up informs you that "This Device is already associated with another Apple ID", and that changing it will mean that you can't get auto-downloads for the other Apple ID for 90 days. It also states that you won't be able to download past purchases with a different Apple ID for 90 days.

So AFAICS this means that anyone attempting to run two Apple IDs on one iDevice - a married couple, a family, whatever - won't be able to download apps from another's account if Auto Downloads is turned on.

I am already getting prompts from iTunes to turn Auto Downloads on, and the Auto Downloads screen allows you to sign in and out of Apple IDs, so I foresee vast barrels of shit hitting the fans before too long...

To add insult to injury, there doesn't appear to be any straightforward way of seeing which of my apps or music is tied to which Apple ID - I can look individually using CMD-I, but in iTunes there is no option in List view to see this info...

Not sure what you're referring to - it doesn't seem obvious to me that Auto Downloads would bugger up your ability to manually download past purchases on another Apple ID... That's just adding insult to injury...

It's very frustrating on an iPad not being able to tell which account your app belongs to. In my case I moved to a different country temporarily and some things weren't available at the first store. iPlayer is obvious, but I can't remember everything, and when apps are later introduced to the original country you get a situation where you're bounced around between stores indefinitely if you ever hit "update all".

Their computers and devices can be registered to both accounts if they want to be able to share content. But their iCloud accounts should still be separate, you wouldn't merge your e-mail account with your partners when you got married, would you?

Make sure to let her know to turn on home sharing after cross authorizing their computers. That way when she buys new media, her spouse's computer will automatically sync it over with no interaction needed (other than having both iTunes instances open).

Since Apple's iCloud announcement, we have received a steady stream of messages from people with the same problem: multiple Apple IDs.

Some readers have been managing two Apple IDs on purpose and are now frustrated about the fact that Apple is restricting logins for automatic downloads. Others have only just discovered that they have two IDs. Most of them have already contacted Apple, only to be given the same answer without exception: Apple will not consolidate Apple ID accounts.

Quote:

Do I expect Apple to change this policy? No, I don't. The company seems to have dug in its heels on this issue early on, and I have no reason to think that the policy will change now. We can only speculate as to why Apple enforces this hard-and-fast rule; a strong suspicion voiced by Mike Rose on this topic is that Apple's licensing agreements with content owners (music labels and movie studios in particular) have some sand in the gears when it comes to merging or splitting content libraries.

[It's also possible that Apple cannot afford to get bogged down in exception handling and legal vagaries across 50 states and scores of countries when, for instance, a brace of divorce lawyers call and request that a 20,000-song iTunes library be split up between their clients' accounts. Much simpler to have a consistent answer of "We can't do that, sorry." –Ed.]

On the other hand, I did not expect Apple to intervene in the Lodsys issue or back down on subscription pricing, and the unveiling of iCloud would probably be the best time for Apple to change this policy--if it ever will.

Now there's a straw man. No one's suggested that Apple should let people split accounts. That's obviously a much more convoluted task.

And there are no obvious contractual justifications for preventing merging accounts so long as they are required to have the same geographic licensing status. Besides the accounts I want to merge, I also have additional accounts linked to the iTunes/Apple stores in different countries. I never presumed that they could or should be able to be merged with my main account because there are clear reasons that they can't be, no matter what I think of the geographic licensing model that's the roadblock in that case.

So I still haven't heard any remotely sensible explanation for disallowing merging accounts in the 99% of cases that people will actually want to do, i.e., when they've somehow ended up with multiple accounts for, say, the US iTunes store.

The problem is that this is not an issue that's been created by too-clever-by-half users -- it's an issue that arose as a result of using Apple's existing services in the manner prescribed by Apple.

People got an iTunes account and used their existing email address.

Then they bought an iPhone and got a MobileMe account. Using their existing iTunes Store account was not an option. They automatically got a new MobileMe ID.

Today those two accounts, both established 100% in accordance with Apple instructions, have evolved into two separate Apple IDs.

And if iCloud sync works as everyone expects, basing both media sync and contacts/calendars/email on one Apple ID, loyal Apple customers who have done everything according to Apple's instructions will be seriously inconvenienced, either by being excluded from media sync or by having to change their email address. That's not a tenable situation.

It's odd, I've had an account before mobileme, with mobileme, and now without. somewhere in there I set up a company and switch to using my email address for the company for the account login. Everything works from it and it is my primary account. (It's also my developer login).

I would be happy if they just fix the current handling of multiple accounts in the iOS app store. I keep getting stuck in this Canada->UK->Canada loop whenever I try to update apps that are available in both stores.

in iOS 4.3.3, you can now choose Automatic Downloads, for Apps, Books and Music (not in the UK). However, not only is this tied to just one Apple ID - if you try to enable it for another Apple ID, a pop-up informs you that "This Device is already associated with another Apple ID", and that changing it will mean that you can't get auto-downloads for the other Apple ID for 90 days. It also states that you won't be able to download past purchases with a different Apple ID for 90 days.

Yes this is horrible, I'm surprised that not many people are voicing concerns or outrage. My general approach is: avoid DRM at all costs whenever possible. This new policy confirms again that the DRM war isn't over, far from over.

My general approach is: avoid DRM at all costs whenever possible. This new policy confirms again that the DRM war isn't over, far from over.

I'm not sure I'd go that far. I don't mind DRM (in the sense of proving that I've paid for stuff) - I do mind the "don't care if you can prove you've paid for it, because it's in a different location you lost your rights, ha ha ha" aspect - that Apple obviously despises, but has to put up with because the labels and studios and publishers just will not get on the Clue Train no matter how hard the whistle blows....

You guys are over reacting. If you don't turn on the automatic downloads for the alternate account you're fine. And you can still manually kick off the downloads for what you want.

But you still have to change which account is logged in, right? That's never made sense to me... if the device is authorized for the account, that should be the end of the story. Don't make me jump through hoops to update iPhone apps, for example.

My general approach is: avoid DRM at all costs whenever possible. This new policy confirms again that the DRM war isn't over, far from over.

I'm not sure I'd go that far. I don't mind DRM (in the sense of proving that I've paid for stuff) - I do mind the "don't care if you can prove you've paid for it, because it's in a different location you lost your rights, ha ha ha" aspect - that Apple obviously despises, but has to put up with because the labels and studios and publishers just will not get on the Clue Train no matter how hard the whistle blows....

Lets clarify that Apps are 100% controlled by Apple and Apple can decide any day if they want auto-download or past-purchase-redownload rights for a secondary ID holder. Apple could lead by example with Apps. So part of the outrage is rightfully directed at Apple.

Lets clarify that Apps are 100% controlled by Apple and Apple can decide any day if they want auto-download or past-purchase-redownload rights for a secondary ID holder. Apple could lead by example with Apps. So part of the outrage is rightfully directed at Apple.

Can't disagree. The stupidly optimistic side of me hopes that Apple is just waiting for iCloud to announce a way of resolving this - the increasing noise from other websites about this very issue may make Apple actually take this seriously (not that they will necessarily do anything). However, Apple is not a company famous for being driven by the winds of popular opinion, so, yes - they deserve my umbrage at the moment.

Then they bought an iPhone and got a MobileMe account. Using their existing iTunes Store account was not an option. They automatically got a new MobileMe ID.

Wait, what? I was able to use my pre-existing iTunes account when I bought an iPhone 4 last summer, and all the songs I've bought from my iPhone appear to be so tagged. (I also had a pre-existing MobileMe account, but I don't use that address as my Apple ID.)

Wait, what? I was able to use my pre-existing iTunes account when I bought an iPhone 4 last summer, and all the songs I've bought from my iPhone appear to be so tagged. (I also had a pre-existing MobileMe account, but I don't use that address as my Apple ID.)

Sorry, I should clarify. People were not able to use their existing iTunes Store account as MobileMe credentials.

The point is that anyone who got an iTunes Store account and then got MobileMe later, which describes a lot of people, is screwed unless Apple allows for account merging.

Yes, it's impossible to merge iTunes accounts (and any other Apple ID account). I've called Apple trying to do it, and after a long slog of finding someone who understood what I wanted to do, that person made it quite clear that it is impossible.

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. Recently I discovered that some of my purchases in iTunes were made on a now-defunct account. Since I didn't have access to the email address, and had mysteriously entered my DOB incorrectly, I emailed Apple Support for a resolution. After much to-ing and fro-ing, I got the following result (email from tech guy):

"... the account "amadan's old account", was changed to currently "amadan's current account" ..., and all of the purchases associated with this email are now associated with this account "amadan's current account", and is the account that you need to sign into to use with the iTunes Store.

It looks like they've basically put a link in their database from my old account to the new account, so that authorising a computer for the new account also authorises the old purchases under the same account.

But their iCloud accounts should still be separate, you wouldn't merge your e-mail account with your partners when you got married, would you?

Most married couples I know keep only one mail box, why not keep one e-mail box? My parents and some (not all) other couples I know do indeed only keep their work accounts separate while they have a common "family" e-mail account (as in "thesmiths@email.provider").

I'm not sure about apps, but as far as music/video goes, does this matter much, or am I missing something? The media is no longer DRM'd, so couldn't you log in with your 'old' account, use the new service to download all of your previous purchases, then log in with your new account and just forget about your old appleID? Or maybe you could do this on a different computer and then just manually combine libraries?

1- I am probably missing something in the original discussion2- An actual implementation of the process would be better than either idea I mentioned

a- I am curious as to how it works out, as I have an old pre .mac/.me account that I'd like to see if I can actually get my old stuff fromb- Is the whole .mac .me account thing finally squared away and fully interchangeable? most everything I have is from .mac days, and it seems some things I can now use the new .me for (like web login, etc), but are they interchangeable as far as things like store accounts and Home Sharing now too?